


Spiral

by hibiscuses



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, didn't proofread this, what do i tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hibiscuses/pseuds/hibiscuses
Summary: It's a vicious cycle, self-doubt, unproductivity, self-blame, rinse, repeat.





	Spiral

 

Even when the music stops and the members empty the room, Jisoo still feels the overcrowding, the suffocation and the density. Jisoo feels every weight he placed himself forced itself down his shoulders when the rest are there, and when they are not. It depends, really, because these weights were never consistent on how far down they push.

 

But on days, he wakes up to them being heavier than they were before he sleeps, and his routine tweaked every little bit every little day he wakes up. For every extra kilogram he felt pressing down his shoulder, he lays on his bed for the extra minute, begging for the extra hour and sometimes considers not appearing all together. 

 

And if he doesn’t, he spends a big part of his day sleeping, spiraling into an unhealthy loop of self-blame, of pulling the team down, of his incompetency and every negative thoughts makes it ever so deep he doesn’t remember where he stands anymore. 

 

He comes up with crap excuses for ditching practices, the members ask out of concern and curiousity, but when his temperature doesn’t change and he looks as perfectly fine as he could present himself to be, he has no other choices. And the members doesn’t probe, because he knows they doubt this headache he claims to have and voicing it out affects their chemistry. Jisoo wouldn’t blame them if they do, though.

 

And if he does, he let his mistakes yell back at him for the rest of the week, because despite his own voice lashing at him not to clash into Seungcheol in Shining Diamonds, to not jump at the wrong timing in Adore U, to stop messing up the lyrics in When I Grow up, to stop repeating them time and again, to stop being such an incompetent mess. He still sees himself doing it, committing each and every one of them for the nth time and to stare at himself in the practice room mirrors and watch the mental image captured during practice of an unsync Adore U jump. And he waits for the sound of an empty hallway so he could run to the restroom to sob his eyes out. 

 

Jisoo always eye the leaders with that glint of envy, how Soonyoung could be so talented in choreographing, singing and holds the variety trio. How Jihoon manages to compose, produce, sing, dance, all at once. How Seungcheol controls the others and despite everything, the more schedule, more things to complete, they still remembers their lines and their steps. 

 

He thinks he’s almost hopeless dance wise, yet so lacking in his forte. 

 

And he isolates, because he’s so easily shunned. Because Jeonghan tells him “it’s an everyone thing”, because Jun tells him he wishes he achieved as much line wise. Because those words carry value and despite the lack of negative intents, Jisoo still feels himself becoming more limp each time he thinks of them and the weights themselves felt two fold times heavier.

 

It tucks him, the numbness in his arms and legs when it’s time to practice, the bit of discouragement shutting himself more than whatever motivation to do well that used to burn so bright in him.  _ Why practice if I’m going to screw it up anyway?  _ And thoughts of calling in sick came back, but he’s being unfair to Wonwoo who wants to perform so bad and he’s unfair to himself and everyone for all the hours they have to clock in just for him.

 

There has to be something he’s good at right? Or at least still good at? He’s not that bad, definitely has some form of contributions to the team, right? He can pull this off and he’s gonna finish whatever upcoming concerts and fanmeet,  _ substandar-,  _ perfectly.

 

As consolation, he grabs his own guitar and plays a random tune, only to notice the dusts it collects and how it hasn’t been tuned. He might need to replace his strings soon, he notes the slight rust forming on it. But he can’t change his fingers for all the rusty skills he’s possessing.

 

He tuned his guitar by ear, so focused that he missed the sound of the practice room door open, and it took Seungcheol to go almost three quarter past his sentence before Jisoo looks up, and asks him to repeat.

 

“Not going back to sleep?” Seungcheol repeats, positioning himself on the floor, facing Jisoo. 

 

Jisoo shrugs, going back to his guitar, trying to remember the chords to a song he had in mind, yet he just couldn’t remember what it was, ending up strumming random chords till he thinks he gets it. 

 

“You look tired.” Seungcheol comments and Jisoo looks up.

 

“Doesn’t everyone?” If there's anything Jisoo learns from how easily dismissed these thoughts can be, it’s how easily it is to dismiss his under confrontation.

 

“Most of us are, just that we don’t lack excitement as much as you seem to. We all know you aren’t having a headache when you ditch.” Seungcheol tries to make eye contact, Jisoo avoids, “Are you okay?”

 

And Jisoo hates that question so much because his tearing eyes screams no but he’s forcing a choked yes. He tries to drain the conversation out by quickly playing a guitar version of Mansae, yet it just doesn’t sound right and he’s strumming faster and faster and each time the mistake louder. He feels his nails cracking as he went on before quickly stopping with a final slam on it. 

 

His fifth string wasn’t tuned.

 

“I didn’t tune properly, Seungcheol,” he mumbles, voice cracking, hands shaking as he clenches his fist. “I can’t do anything right can I? I’m just here, pulling everything down and acting as if I’m good, competent enough to stand with everyone. I’m amazed they even gave me parts, I should have been just the silent member.”

 

He doesn’t look up for even a bit to face Seungcheol, to let Seungcheol see that he’s crying because it’s not rocket science. 

 

And he’s so  _ weak weak weak  _ because now he’s wasting Seungcheol’s precious time sobbing his eyes out and to get consoled, when he has better things to do than to tend to him, than to hear him talk about it as if he doesn’t already know. 

 

Seungcheol looked momentarily pissed before smiling once again and speaking up, “it’s okay.” he brings Jisoo to a hug and pats him on the back rhythmically. But Jisoo knows it’s not and he knows that he solves nothing by being silent, because all he’s done thus far is avoid, avoid, avoid.

 

Seungcheol doesn’t say much as he brings his grip towards Jisoo’s shoulder, bring the younger to face him and make eye contacts, except that he’s doing okay, that Jisoo’s being too hard on himself that it has come to this. But the tough part is in voicing everything out, every single mistake he sees, and with him catching for breath and the muffling of his tears he wasn’t even sure if Seungcheol could even hear his words.

 

“The jump…”

 

“You were off.” 

 

Because  _ fuck, he knows _ ,  _ he knows,  _ **_he knows._ **

 

“Jisoo, we can tell.” And he holds from crying any more, lip bites, quick blinks, shaking fingers. “But no one’s saying it, everyone asks me because that one time Jihoon said you were off key and your voice cracked, you got recording done and over with and didn’t take a turn till three days later because you push every member’s turn forward and we know you’re not actually sick.”

 

Speechless.

 

“Because the jump doesn’t matter as much as you, because Soonyoung’s so afraid to call you out anymore when he’s calling Jeonghan out for point his toe in the wrong direction, because it’s so fucking obvious when you come out of the shower with puffy eyes or hogged the toilet for 20 minutes straight, with the tap water running and no flushing sounds.”

 

Jisoo wasn’t sure if he was subconsciously burying himself into Seungcheol’s arms, or if Seungcheol was wrapping his around, or both. 

 

“Remember when I tripped during mama?” Jisoo nods. “It was such a big thing and-”

 

“And you felt embarrassed and you came to me crying.” he mumbles between huffs, trying to catch his breath. 

 

“I came to you crying.” Seungcheol repeats. “Jisoo, I know we’ve drifted but this is where everything becomes a problem. Seungkwan rants to Hansol every night and we know you listen to Wonwoo and Jeonghan once in awhile. You know it’s okay, because we circulate our worries, and everyone’s doing it around and no one’s pulling anyone down.”

 

“But-”

 

“But we’ve better things to do? Jisoo, I’ve been through this myself, and everytime I teach you a choreography I remember it better than I did prior. I still have to thank you for that.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

Seungcheol’s phone rings and the contact reads manager, the leader doesn’t pick it up, but looks at Jisoo and gave a warm smile before giving him a signal. Jisoo takes it and that night, Jisoo hid under Seungcheol’s blanket and comes clean on everything. 

 

The next practice, Jisoo’s steps are so light he doesn’t feel the weights pushing down when he jumps, Seungcheol takes a step back in Shining Diamond and the members makes space, Seungkwan and Seokmin makes Jisoo’s pronunciation error their newest inside joke and they repeat from the practice rooms to back in the dormitory, leaving the other units confused. 

  
That night, Jisoo tells Seungcheol under the blankets about how uncomfortable his stage costumes were and Seungcheol tells Jisoo about how tough it was recording his part, because he couldn’t muster out the consonant sounds clear enough. And Jisoo stops feeling the weight up his shoulders when Seungcheol hugs him to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Honestly, I just needed a place to channel all my negativity and hence I wrote this. If things seemed disjointed, it's because I wrote different bits at different points of time.


End file.
